Read How I was Murdered by a Fox Monster Online
Authors: M.C Queen
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How I was Murdered by a Fox Monster (16 page)
“
Hey Sis there's no need to stress out,” I said nervously. “If
you'd stayed together you wouldn't have Shuro and
Hikaru.”
“
Yes, yes you're right.” She folded up the
shirt and attempted to regain her composure.
“
But he said that we'd be together
forever
!”
began lamenting about how her old fiance left her for a busty
tramp. I was just glad Shuro wasn't there. I wasn't sure how he'd
take it, but he may have already heard the whole story. My sister
then spent an hour crying on my shoulder and I had to supply her
with tissues. I decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to ever
bring up her past relationships. As strong as Sis seemed there were
certain topics which quickly sent her into a mass of tears. I can
only hope that she won't be that way about my death.
Chapter
16
My conversation with Sis made me think about my parents, or my
lack of them. I could still clearly remember how the wolf Obake
looked me in the eyes and said “
you're face
looks familiar, have I tried to kill you before?
”
possible that he may have gotten into a fight with one of my real
parents or relatives.
I never told anyone this before, but I often thought about my
parents. Well not so much
thought
because I couldn't remember
them, it was more like I would imagine what they could have been
like.
times when Sis would punish me for misbehaving, and I would
daydream that my parents were millionaires living on an exotic
island. They were still searching for their long-lost son who had
been taken away in a freak boating accident. Then one day they
would appear on the door step to collect me and take me back to
their mansion.
If my parents
were also exorcists it would explain why I had such high spiritual
powers. Taisei once told me that only people from certain families
had the potential to be exorcists.
I decided to
explain the situation to Akito, because he seemed to be the one
with all the exorcist connections.
“
Yes it's quite possible that your parents were exorcists,”
said Akito. “I'll have to contact the other branches all over
Japan, but I'll see if there were any exorcists matching your
description, but,” he paused. “There's also the chance that we
might not find anything, you should prepare yourself for
that.”
“
I know,” I said. “I'm already used to knowing nothing.” It
was true that I didn't want to disappoint myself, but I didn't
think it would hurt to do a little investigating.
positive thing about the wolf attack was that Akito finally decided
to step up my training. Instead of researching Obake and writing
compositions, I had to sit on a rock outside and meditate. Akito
made me do it for hours, and claimed that it was designed to help
bring out my hidden potential, but the only thing it brought out
was the pain in my butt.
“
I don't see why I have to meditate so much when all I have to
do is squint and the paper goes up in flames,” I
complained.
“
That's only the preliminary step,” said Akito. “Unless you
gain more concentration you're never going to improve. You want to
be on the same level as Itsuki, correct?”
have known me well, since dropping Itsuki's name was enough to get
me fired up and motivated, for the first hour. After that I began
falling asleep. Akito must have anticipated that I would do so, and
would occasionally walk past with a bamboo pole and whack me if I
appeared to be dozing off. I began to wonder if it was my
punishment for saying that I didn't want to do research
anymore.
I thought my
constant endurance on the rock may have finally paid off when I
arrived at headquarters to find Akito dressed up in strange purple
robes. I wondered if it was some special occasion, like an Obake
hunter conference.
“
Here, carry this,” he said while placing a large duffel bag
before me.
“
Where are we going?” I asked while wondering if Akito had
found a bigger rock for me to sit on.
“
It's part of your training,” he said. Akito pulled open a
draw and began packing small objects into another bag. I caught a
glance of a cross and a small glass bottle of water.
“
Are we going on a trip? Like a hardcore training trip up a
mountain to fight wild boars, or crazy Obake, and then I get left
alone to fend for myself for weeks while some crazy guy in a mask
attacks me.” It was the plot of the recent comic book I'd been
reading and I thought it sounded exciting.
“
No,” he said while looking at me stunned. “Why on earth would
anyone want to do that?”
“
Oh,” I slumped. I suddenly felt quite
disappointed.
“
I'm sorry to disappoint you,” he said after glancing at my
gloomy expression. “But we're only going on an
exorcism.”
“
An
exorcism?
Are you serious, like a real
live exorcism?”
“
Yes, something along those lines,” he said.
“
Yes! Finally!” I was virtually bouncing off the walls until
Akito scolded me.
“
Daisuke, you need to calm down right now and carry these
bags!”
was the most disappointing three hours of my life. I don't know
what I must have done in a past life if I already had the
misfortune of loosing my parents, not being tall, and then landing
a mentor like Akito.
When Akito said
exorcism,
I assumed he meant giant animal
monsters which could take a man's head off. Unfortunately for me
what Akito actually meant was that we were going to
an
exorcism,
also known as the type where we
dress up as priests and attempt to exorcise nonexistent ghosts.
What happened that day probably isn't relevant to the tale of my
untimely demise, but I wanted to tell you more of the suffering
which Akito often subjected me to.
gazed around the sitting room of an eighty year old woman. I was
hoping there would be something lying around which would ease my
boredom, but I could see nothing more than old photographs and
fraying furniture which reeked of mothballs. There was nothing
particularly odd about the sitting room, except the giant framed
picture of an obese ginger tabby which adorned the shrine altar. My
mentor Akito (dressed head to toe in his priest outfit) sat on his
knees before it solemnly praying.
“
Fluffy we bid thee a peaceful departure into the afterlife,”
he said. “Mrs Tanaka is humbly sorry that she neglected your
welfare and left you to freeze in the snow that fateful February
afternoon. We hope that you can overcome your grudges in the
physical world and make a peaceful transition into the feline
afterlife. ”
he was making most of it up off the top of his head, and I had to
prevent myself from dissolving into a puddle of hysterics. I also
had to wave a wooden pole and sprinkle water (apparently holy) all
over the house. It was some strange mix of eastern and western
exorcisms, and it wouldn't have surprised me if Akito got all his
ideas from horror movies.
“
Cat begone! Cat
begone!
” Akito shouted into the corridors
of the old woman's home.
I didn't think it was possible for anyone to believe the crap which
was coming out of his mouth, but the woman sat their solemnly
throughout the ceremony and handed over a large stack of bills at
the end. I stared with my mouth open.
“
Wow! That has to at least be thre-” and that's when Akito
elbowed me in the stomach.
“
I sense that Mr Fluffy has finally become at peace and made
the journey onto the next world,” said Akito seriously without
giving away any hint of the ridiculousness of his words. “Even my
assistant was deeply moved by the relationship between you and your
cat,” he said in reference to the time when I began shaking
uncontrollably in an effort to suppress my laughter. If I was her I
would have kicked Akito out of my house, by Mrs Tanaka sat there
quietly, nodded her head, and began dabbing the tears away from her
eyes with a handkerchief.
seemed like a con, and that poor old woman had given us her money
for doing nothing. I decided to question Akito about his morals
once we were safely out of there and seated on the train.
“
Isn't it a bit misleading to take her money for doing
nothing?” I asked.
“
We're not doing nothing,” hissed Akito as he looked around
frantically to see if anyone had heard. “The money from today will
go to the exorcist organization, which goes towards protecting this
town from Obake. So you could say that we did help her, and
besides, it is possible for vengeful spirits to later manifest into
Obake somewhere down the line.”
“
Are you serious, are you saying that fat cat could show up
one day and eat people?” I was certain it would need to lose weight
first before it could inflict terror into the hearts of
men.
“
As for the cat,” said Akito. “I think not, but you are
probably familiar with different ghost stories correct? It's not
odd for people who die horrible deaths to one day appear as
Obake.”
“
What! People can also become Obake?”
“
It's not as common as you'd expect, most people don't want to
become man eating-monsters and devourer their families. But I
usually deal with it once or twice a year. It's mostly children and
teenagers. Those who didn't get the chance to grow up are always
the worst.”
“
But you can stop it right, like the stuff you did
today?”
“
What we did today was all for show, there's no possible way
of stopping an Obake until it appears in physical form. While most
Obake are born from other Obake, there are also a lot which are
born from the physical world, or make the transition from the
spirit world. We're still undecided how they come to be, but it's
not strange for an Obake to suddenly appear one day out of thin
air. The weaker ones are often mistaken as ghosts, but the more
malicious kind pose a danger to humanity.”
“
Are you saying that it's possible for an
Obake just to appear anywhere at anytime?
Like on this
train
?”
“
Yes, it's quite possible,” he nodded.
closer to Akito.
“
But unlikely,” he added. That's why we should take
these cases seriously. We might not be able to do anything until
the Obake appears, but it's a good way to investigate potential
Obake infestations.”
“
I see, I see,” I nodded. The matter was more serious than I
could have ever imagined.
“
But that's not the reason why I brought you here today,” said
Akito. “It's all well and good to become an exorcist, but it
doesn't pay well. Recently I've been thinking that if being an
exorcist doesn't work out for you, maybe you could take on a job
like this and help raise funds for the organization.”
“
Oh I see,” I nodded. “Is that what happened to you
Akito?”
think that I said anything bad, but Akito suddenly went very silent
and didn't speak for the entire journey back. Once we arrived at
headquarters he ordered me back to the rock with a vengeance.
“
So you went on one
of
those
exorcisms,” said Taisei who stopped by my rock for a chat.
“Akito made me go a few times but he had to kick me out cause I
laughed too much.”
“
I thought that too,” I said. “But then I learned how
important it was for sussing out potential Obake.”
“
That's just a bunch of crap, the organization is only making
up excuses to scam people for money. The only way to get rid of an
Obake is by destroying it. You should have figured that out by
now.”
“
That's not true, Akito said that Obake can appear anywhere at
any time!”
“
But it's usually near the body, so unless someone was
murdered and stashed under that rock last night I don't think you
have anything to worry about.”
I felt a cold chill go down my spine. “
Near the body
?”
sighed. “Akito's been such a pain recently. I don't want to go to
university so he's been trying to get me involved with some of
these things, like selling charms, and writing columns for strange
supernatural magazines. I just know that Akito's trying to convert
me into his own personal stooge.”
“
Taisei,
” I
said.
“
I mean how hard is it just to give me a break?”
“
Taisei
.”
“
We already train three hours a day.”
“
Taisei
,” I
whispered while tilting my head towards what lay behind
him.
“
What is it?” He signed and leaned back on my rock, only to be
confronted by the sight of Akito glaring at him from the window. He
immediately snapped to attention. “Wow look at that, I've got to go
kill.. something... and then take some pictures,” he said before
dashing off.
